


Starfish on the Beach

by ShadowsOffense



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsOffense/pseuds/ShadowsOffense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Insanity and therapy inside Arkham from the eyes of a PhD.</p>
<p>Prompt: Rose Colored Glasses</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starfish on the Beach

Title: Starfish on the Beach  
Prompt: Rose Colored Glasses  
Rating: PG  
Characters: Poison Ivy  
Word Count: 610  
Warnings: None  
Summary: Insanity and therapy in Arkham from the eyes of a PhD

Ivy never contested her diagnose.

She was crazy.

She lived in a reality with different parameters than the rest of society.

_“Dr. Isley, I need you to understand that plants are incapable of the types of reactions that differentiate sentient life from non-sentient.”_

In 1848, Dr. Fechner published a book entitled “Nanna” in which he described his theories regarding a plant’s emotional capacity. He hypothesized that this kingdom of life was no more limited in its emotional capacity than the Metazoa Kingdom. He further suggested that a plant’s growth could be improved if a gardener spoke to the plant.

In the 1900s an Indian scientist, Sir Bose, found that plants did grow better when exposed to pleasant music. He conducted a second series of experiments in which he used a polygraph machine measure the electrical resistance of plants to barbaric emotional stimuli. They did not enjoy torture. 

100 years later, Professor Jaffe tested these theories and found that it took weeks for plants to respond to sounds within the human vocal range, but that they responded to sounds just outside this range, at approximately 75 decibels, much more rapidly. His lab assistant, Pamela Isley, recorded these findings dutifully, marking down each test response as facts started to shift her perspective. 

_“You are an accomplished botanist; you know that plants lack nervous systems, or any equivalent sensory system, which would be necessary to perceive emotions.”_

Isley’s, _Ivy’s_ , own experiments went beyond what the scientific community deemed possible. Plants could not feel, they could not understand human speech, therefore they could not respond to her orders and tie Batman down, they could not scream when Batman ripped them in half as he tore his way free.

A scientist theorized, the conducted practical experimentation, and recorded the resulting data, which would either prove of disprove their hypothesis. 

She was crazy because she believed in fact.

If she had been wrong then it shouldn’t have been possible for her creations to exist. It didn’t matter what the world said, in what reality they existed. True insanity would have been throwing a potted fichus at Batman and imagining it tied him up. Then they could have taken her away to Arkham and been right. Because then, the world would be as flat as society deemed.

She was a scientist; she saw, therefore she believed.

_“Plants can’t **feel** Isley!”_

But testable, irrefutable evidence proved they could.

And how could she walk past her neighbor cutting his yard and ignore the screams?

After World War II, people wondered how high ranking German officers could have lived so close to concentration camps. Close enough to smell the stench of dead flesh. To hear the screams. The curses. The pleas for mercy.

The elderly Christmas pine pinned to a wire contraption, its roots cut off, trying to suck enough water to stay alive and praying for death until it was finally tossed, a skeleton of itself, to die in the gutter or even be chopped up alive.

_“Take Dr. Isley to dinner, we’ll try this again tomorrow.”_

Gray walls, itchy cotton, hard mattress.

Out there atrocities were being committed in the billions and they showed no sign of stopping.

Ivy never felt insane anywhere else but inside Arkham.

She picked up her fork and paused as she noticed the bud vase on her tray. Someone’s cruel idea of a joke, perhaps.

“Hello, there,” she whispered to the flower, checking the anger she felt boiling up inside. Picking up the vase, she held it to the light, looking to see if there was any chance at all to stimulate root growth. To see if maybe she could save this one.


End file.
